Author ocean printed out downstairs and she talks about the importance of bookstores she talks about if you just go on amazon that youre only going to see a calcified version of your reading past. But when you walk into a bookstore you have no idea whats going to capture eye and your future is here and so it was part of the dream. Mr. Clifton when he bought the store not to be just a place of commerce for folks to gather and come together and have a community, different ideas and experiences. So were always ecstatic whenever we can now in our 31st year here in the square to have something that brings so many folks in. Second point will make is election day is any day you take out your wallet, youre giving to a business that youre voting sticks around and youre walking past one that you dont really have any emotion invested in. And so were ecstatic that are voting to have us here today. So with that, thank you for coming to our author event tonight. We are ecstatic to be joined with my notes over there. Somebody stole. This is the latest from matthew luter. Okay. Not at all. Hows it pronounced . Thats your thing. So cspan is here. Were going to have a chat. Its open for questions. But when those questions arrive a boom mic will arrive near you, this is to be recorded and played back in a later time on cspan. We have been told schedule yet it is not a natural thing to be speaking and then all of a sudden something comes in. So theres no cause for alarm. Thank you so matthew guterl. Sarah, listen, you dont have plus. A haunting poignancy of growing up in a mixed race family in 1970s, new jersey. Thats what it says but new jersey isnt haunting new jersey as a state as fine superior. Yeah jersey state its oh its my favorite state. So it is a powerful book. It not always a comfortable to read you joke before that the vast majority of people here are your friends. How many of them knew this story, tried this book . None of them two years ago. Six of them six months ago. Maybe third of them ten days ago. All i didnt think wed be doing this today and that secrecy was that by design, was that this is nobodys business. Were you sick of being on display as a kid in your adult life . You wanted to be held back. I never thought about it that way. I, i dont ordinarily talk about. So im a fairly private person and and the idea of writing a memoir seems so horribly vainglorious and selfcentered. Just couldnt imagine doing it like i hate people who write memoirs so theyre pretty full themselves. Yes exactly. So i couldnt imagine i would ever be one of those people. So why did you do it . I mean a memoir is a mirror for a writer, for a reader, for an audience. And in covid time, it felt like were all stuck inside and stuck in a very interior space. It was an opportunity for me, do things i had long planned to do. Id been working on Something Else, and colbert interrupted, you know, i had been writing a biography a more conventional Academic Book and the collections that i had been using in ireland had been closed off. So i had this box of materials for my father in the basement and it seemed like it was a good time to go through them and see what was and to take a look in the mirror. Your father, bob, is reason why. One of the reasons why youre so interesting, so, cheryl and he go to the worlds fair in new york and something about that sparking them a dream to help on a grand scale is that a fair way to. Well, they didnt go together went they went to the same fair. They went to the 1964 worlds fair. And they both saw union sphere, that sort of giant silver state monument to the globe and the world fair was itself a sort of it anticipated a future that was smaller, more intimate more collegial, more friendly. And i think they were both inspired by it. I know they held on to my father, held on to his ticket to the worlds fair until he passed away. And i think they left it unhappy with the state of the world and eager to try to make a difference and change it. And when they connected a few years that it was a it was a union of two young people who who really wanted to, again, change the world and make it a better place and in their eyes, best way to do that is to go to Central Jersey. Huge house, huge yard, hang up a shingle and. A mixed adoptive family. Well, i mean, i mean, if youre going to start anything new, jersey is a wonderful place to start out. You ever going to see career to all of us . Absolutely. But in in this case, you know, its a its a matter of circumstance. They found each other there. My father grew up in jersey city, he was a city kid from a large extended family. He really wanted to live in a place that had green spaces. He went as far as he could from jersey city, so long as there was a train that led back and and then went a little bit when he found my mom to find a house the middle of almost nowhere in jersey. This is the moment in time in jersey history when route 78 hadnt been completed and. That meant that Central Jersey really was just farmland and not much else. It was it was basically the pine barrens from, well, anybody new jersey would say no, the Central Jersey and the pine barrens are different places. But im being im being to too particular here. Yeah, no, but it was rural in the same way. And so there are natural children of bob and cheryl, yourself and your brother mark. Right. And then first adoptee is bug bug. And he was from korea, right but comes from korea in 1971. And for those of you who dont know, were you know, were unlearning lot of what we understood about korean adoption the early 1970s. At the time was presented to us as a child who had no parentage, no family connection. The true orphan there passed completely clean and that were unlearning that now and finding out that in fact many of these children had biographies and other histories at the time though bug was presented to us as a as a child very easily assimilated into an american with no problematic connection to korea buggery gives and is immediately a part of our family at age five, one one comes at one. But this isnt an indictment of your parents because they did Meticulous Research on finding and bring them. Absolutely. This is all thats available at the time and and whats happening in part, i think were learning now is not just that theres an interest in the us adopting korean orphans. Theyre described in as a way to demonstrate americas leadership in the world and a possible future. But in korea theres an interest in offloading children as well. And so the state grinds clean. The or biographies of these kids and presents them as petri of family attachment. So that white families in the us might feel. Its easier adopt them. Yeah. And then mark comes along, right. And then bear bear comes out fine and then bear was from vietnam. Bear comes from vietnam under under very difficult circumstance. Consider so bear bear was one of three mixed race children. His mother mae had three children with three different africanamerican servicemen in vietnam. And then at the time in vietnam having mixed race black asian children was very problematic and, very difficult. So they were relocated, a small school right next to the us embassy, the hope school, run by this kind of zelig like character, victor srinivasan, whos a former British Air Force colonel who sets about saving the world and one child at a time. So he opens the school for basically mixed race in saigon there is one of those kids theyre about 15 theyre at the time when the us leaves saigon in 1975. Hes on one of the very last planes out of the city. And this gentleman, victor, gets phone call basically in minutes. Your place is going to be overrun, grab as many people as you can and get out of there. Yeah. Had he not done that, what happens to those kids that are. Well, they they stay behind. So and they endanger. Well, theres certainly remembers it that way and i suspect that they were mean theres a theres a great purge collaborators after the us leaves its clear that there would have been some to children certainly mae would have been severely threatened, but by virtue his black skin, he is clearly the product of imperialist and the bad guy. And until until very recently fears most vivid memory of violence of racial violence is the stares that he receives in vietnam as a mixed race child. So he has if you were to ask him to sort rank order the aggressions hes received over the course of his life and again until very recently he would list that the the of being watched and hated in vietnam as a mixed race child the death said yeah thats thats the very worst thing hed experienced. So now when he arrives youre five im 545 days younger than him. Oh yeah. If if im a little kid and instantly get a new brother i think thats fantastic. Was it was fantastic or not. I mean i think it it wasnt wasnt so i, i remember i mean, this is this is all in book. But i remember being extremely gracious and i had other family members remember. Well, i dont my my mother says that i simply stopped talking for several months but giving stage i, i recall. Right, exactly. I mean space for bear and i remember giving bear my bicycle. Yeah. And welcome welcoming bear into my bedroom. We shared a bedroom for years. But thats not how everyone it. Well they they can here if they want to it also doesnt help that bear is instantly more electric than i am. Hes less private more hes a significantly better athlete than i am gifted and all things that five year old boys want to be gifted at. Sure. And and, you know, just a really attractive fun, interesting person were you throughout because theres more adoptions come were you or mark a consultant at all in the in the early days . No, not not in those first two adoptions with bear and with bob, because were, you know, babies, mark describes himself as a perpetual baby in all of this and says, i feel like i was three through the whole story. I dont i dont remember getting older but but in later years there more consultation so and when if ever did comfortability come in terms clearly your different than the families that are also growing up in that new jersey. So my earliest memory of knowing we were different comes with bears. And i think part of that part of that is that the one asian adopted child matched a kind of conventional model of the ways in which children were at the time smaller families. One adopted child from asia model minority present in the family and that fit a kind of stint where adoption was standard that fit a kind of standard model but bears arrival signaled Something Different and something very unusual in that we were now a multiracial family and we were we were not quite minority majority, but we were trending in the direction that there seemed to be a sort of even match. And we were in this very small town behind a white picket fence, in a white clapboard house, and that, too, was an unusual place to locate such a family. And youre not done. Bob and cheryl arent done. And so anna comes along from korea as a as a child. Not not as a baby. She was 13. She was . Yeah. And then eddie comes from the south bronx, he. Five, six, six. Okay. At what point did they feel like . Were done or was there always well could put additions on the house keep bringing them in what they did put in addition on the house eventually but they i think six was enough you know it at at the original plan you know in that bucket of materials that my mom gave to me the original plan for them to adopt two and to have two of their own and goal was to have sort of a matched to children from either in your area that was the original plan and then two children who were white as this sort of evolved my my dad got in the habit of using the language of to of race. So this is the sort of theme that emerges in the front end of the book, the sort of biblical reference, noahs preservation of two of each species on, the eve of the worlds destruction. And he did he really subscribe to that . Did he really think this whole american thing is going to go south quick . So we get a i mean, i think he did. He didnt he he was a very you know, we were talking about a little bit this before if if he was religious, it was always with a wink and a smile if if he offered biblical, it was sort of half jokingly, he was a he was a very devout, very catholic man, but had an enormous sense of humor, took a lot of and a big laugh and a big joke and at no point did he ever say to of every race without like kind of laughing about it or turning into a bit of piece of humor. Right. Its its i mean, the subject of race were not going to solve tonight and been plaguing the country for maybe we will thats cspan send that out i mean if we solve race tonight maybe its tonight skin folk is the book that saved so i were going to move some units here. There are some that would say the efforts of bob and cheryl smack of white savior hood heres the white thats going to be the hero. Sure is that how saw himself so yes i do think it sort of smacks that but no, i dont know that he necessarily saw himself that way. I mean, its the the whole point of white savior dome is that you dont always it you know, but when theres an action taken, just an action. And when is that action a white action . Oh, this is definitely a white action. Mean hes acting as a as a white head of household and a moment where that figure, the sort of white father in family is is an overdetermined. You know, the family in the nation are seen as metaphors for each other and and hes the head of state head of the family hes, the white guy who makes decisions for all of us. And thats true right up until the point in which he passes away. Hes hes quite comfortable in that authority, you know. So was it was it not a partnership with your mom . They had a they had a complementary partnership. I mean, as a as what i described in the book was that he is the sort of big dreamer with ideas that are enormous. She is the much more practical much more grounded person whos interested in whether or not she can teach six kids to do laundry or she has any interest in doing that or what it will cost to provide food. These kids when they go to school and where they will go to high school and what that will cost. And so as a kid up in that house as part a grand experiment, were you were you made to feel over pressure to, do something with your life to further the cause of helping heal the racial wounds of country . Thats a great question. No, i we were encouraged to be good people first and foremost, but we were mostly encouraged to be good to each other, to be good together. And i think thats the the point of what we were doing was to be in community with each other and to do it publicly and often. We werent encouraged to do mission work. We werent sort of sent out, we werent trotted to protests, we werent brought to cities to do to do work in moments of great crisis. And instead, we were encouraged to just be together to to to play, to have fun, to be an ordinary family in one way and to be an extraordinary family in this probably is going to come out right. But im not a professional. So did he this idea that fit as long as you were children or did he have a sense of how your adult lives would be . And how you would hed look at your your siblings as scattered away from new jersey. Youre up here as fine or that going against Stay Together you know he when he passed away he a letter for us all which in typical bob fashion the letter was unedited had some typos we had it took us a while to find it was kind of lost on his laptop. So i dont want you to assume that you had this sort of laid out or not, you know, in a classic envelope with a wax seal on the back of it. That said, my children, in case of my death right. It was thats not the kind of person that he was. And he asked us to Stay Together and to take care of my mom. But he also, you know, had family that was itself scattered the east coast. So i dont i dont know. He expected us all to live together. Yeah. He had the virtue of living in a small place jersey city with all of his relatives very close. And then he, brother and his sister moved out to central and were very close to one another. But i dont i dont remember him ever saying that he wanted all to live, to be neighbors. Yeah. Just just, again, i think so much of what we were supposed to do was what did as children and what we did as young people in the family. Now, three siblings had no choice in the right bugbear. Over and out for ed, who had no choice at the start. So now as adults, how much of what you had no choice other. Well its thats fair. How would he think he did at the end of his life at looking at looking at the last 20 years since his passing how would he was was the sacrifice and was the grand scheme worth. I think he i, i think he believed right up until the moment that passed away that that he had saved lives and particularly thinking about and bear and eddie, that those were people whose lives had he had made better or improved were they agreed in different ways. I think that they would you know know for sure would would say that that was true bear has said that he nothing but gratitude. You know i, i think that when he when he passed away he was sad, you know he he could feel something happening and he could feel the family starting to fray. And that was clear especially in the last few years of his life as as bug estranged from the family as eddie our youngest child was sent away to prison. And as we sort of lost track each other and of that sort of initial driving force in the family is it and im i get your title right because its very impressive the el herbert ballou University Professor of Africana Studies in american studies at brown. So you smart guy hardworking talented can do you know whatever you want to do lucky lucky sandy emerging and youre you are devoting your professional life to African Studies is that coincidence is that is that something what connection does have with your childhood know i think that growing up in that family forced me to ask at a very early age certain kinds of questions that i spent the rest of my life answering and like what . Like what race . What am i what are we what are we all doing here together . Why . Why does someone chase my brother down the street . Does someone use the nword in that way . Why . Why all the violence . Why . Why is my brother going prison . Why . Why cant i get arrested . The police. But. But eddie cant get away with anything. So i feel like those kinds of questions were just the natural questions that i had growing up and answers have come, wolf. But before get to the answers. So i think i you fall this this job title that youve just mentioned simply as a natural way to try to answer these questions like you you have to you have these questions. Theyre humanistic questions. You have to try to answer them. So how you going to answer them . So theyre the way you have to answer them is to like look at stuff, stuff, think about stuff, write stuff, try to try to think through and for whatever reason, my, my thought process is, is a writing process. So no